Saturday, January 7, 2012

for what it's worth

Buffalo Springfield had their greatest success with this single inspired by protests on the Sunset Strip over new curfew and loitering laws. Stephen Stills recalls: "I had had something kicking around in my head. I wanted to write something about the kids that were on the line over in Southeast Asia that didn't have anything to do with the device of this mission, which was unraveling before our eyes. Then we came down to Sunset from my place on Topanga with a guy - I can't remember his name - and there's a funeral for a bar, one of the favorite spots for high school and UCLA kids to go and dance and listen to music. [Officials] decided to call out the official riot police because there's three thousand kids sort of standing out in the street; there's no looting, there's no nothing. It's everybody having a hang to close this bar. A whole company of black and white LAPD in full Macedonian battle array in shields and helmets and all that, and they're lined up across the street, and I just went 'Whoa! Why are they doing this?' There was no reason for it. I went back to Topanga, and that other song turned into 'For What It's Worth,' and it took as long to write as it took me to settle on the changes and write the lyrics down. It all came as a piece, and it took about fifteen minutes."

After the difficulty the band had with producers Charlie Greene and Brian Stone during the recording of their debut album, they recorded this song without them. Greene and Stone had forced each of the band members to record their parts separately in the studio and combine them later, which resulted in poor sound quality. This was the first time that Buffalo Springfield was recorded together as a band. The single of 'For What It's Worth' went to number seven on the US pop chart and was featured as the leadoff track on a re-release of their self-titled first album.